And then there are things we should always remember.  The look and the words that set us apart from those who rule our days with pain and destruction, those who seek to burn what we build , those who laugh at our adversity and make our life desolate.

These are the things we should remember, always each day without fail, without censure.  I had a dream once, and in it I was everything I knew I couldn’t be. In it I knew love and beauty and strength, I was capable of all that life desired and that I demanded, but then I woke and to what?

Your pale form laying wasted on a bed, engulfed and dwarfed by the machines that buzzed and hummed around you and even now I pray that life in her misery can show me a side that is kind.  Where the innocent do not have to pay for the stupidity of others.  Where reality can come crashing down on us and leave us weeping with joy and hope and I know that she has never been that kind.

My quiet mistress, composed, assured and capable of bending the strong to her will, the weak to her desire and the haunted to become the hunted.  She who holds me in her iron grip and will not let me sleep, dogs my mind and invades my sleep as it tries to fold me in the sweet and pleasant vortex where for a moment I can forget.

But then I cannot, as the immortal bard had once said, “To sleep, perchance to dream, ay there’s the rub.” For that guileless sleep evades me still  and I am bereft, knowing all that a I can be and all that I am may not be enough to guard you in Morpheus’s keep.

Slates a good man, one of the best, he needs to be with UNCLE.  But I find myself not relaxing as once I would in you company.  I assume that’s one of the other things I have to remember.  When I know you are there Illya, my world is complete, I know that my white knight will ride to my defence, will trust in me and will find a way to rescue me no matter the odds.  Into hell and back became a phrase that I never believed until I knew you by my side.

Am I in love with you my sweet Russian? Of course I am, how could I not be? How could I have been so blind to that which I know for certain is the better part of me and not be able to recognise you for what you are? I have so many questions, so many desires that I should not have of another man, and yet gender makes no difference to me, that you are male adds spice to an already tempting pie. That you are my equal thrills me in ways that only those who live our lives can accept and understand.  With you I never have to worry, I know for certain that we are as we should be, complete.

That is you complete me dushka, my soul, my conscience.  And in this I know true fear. You terrify me my friend. More skilled and colder in the ways of war than I could ever be, more restrained and self aware than any man I have ever known. In our game, and it is game, a ceaseless vagaries of landscape that the politician’s and tacticians in our lives call the cold war.  This uprising that spawned us and yet you still carry your humanity on your vest like a badge of honour.  Small children, the elderly, animals and innocents instinctively seek you out and with something akin to childlike wonder you empathise with them.  Understand what they need and know how to make their world warm and safe again.  You do it to senior agents as well, but then I assume you know that. You manipulate me perfectly and I never even realised it, you let me lead you on the path that you had chosen and I charged ahead, never fully aware that I was going where you wanted me to go.
 

I watch Mark work and he’s good, but he’s not mine and I feel the pain clearly old friend. He is graceful and elegant, swift, accomplished and assured and yet still he lacks that naive charm, the lost child in him lost forever with eyes that have seen too much and known too many pains to ever be truly innocent again.  How is it you managed so well?

Berlin.  I hate Berlin, its tacky and cold, the streets damp with human degradation and we the mighty west have encouraged her peaceful demise. But still its heart is not lost to us is it? It is here that Mr. Waverly tells me we will find the questions to the answers we have.  We will know what it is that keeps you locked away from me, and I pray it’s not forever.  And willingly into that void I would go with you Illya.  This game holds little satisfaction for me without you.  Every moment we ascribe to a greater good has you drifting away in a world where I will be condemned should I take you to my own.

And I intend to make that clear to you Illya, you are mine and I shall tell you, no matter what the outcome you will know that you are loved.  Even if that damned Russian reticence prohibits you from accepting what I offer.  It’s a possibility.

Mark’s smiling again, that low feral cunning has become our stock in trade. He worries about you as well and he knows I will not call, cannot allow this danse macabre take me down into the darkness and waltz me to the brink of my own mortality.  You need me my friend. The drugs they used are killing you, your body beaten and bruised and the other horrors I suspect that they inflicted upon you.  But then they wont tell me, even Waverly refuses to confirm what it is that I know, they are afraid.  They know, God watch them, they know I love you and always have, and know what I will do in order to take my terrible revenge on them.

They have yet to see cold, and I am borderline now, if you die then hell will know a new prince.  Nothing matters to me, even the innocents that stand between us and them. I will have them Illya, I will have what they know and save you and then I will send them to perditions flames with nothing more than grim delight.

“Guv, we’ve got an address, time to roll.” Mark is calling me back to the car away from the dark streets.

I have to go Illya, stay with me please.

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